Long Bright River(82)

It’s not that I miss her. It’s that I miss the idea of family, in general, I suppose. The day that Thomas went missing, the fact that I had no one to call for support troubled me deeply. And I told myself, Michaela, it is your responsibility to create a greater network of friends and family than what you currently have. If not for yourself, then for Thomas.

Yesterday, therefore, I called Gee to let her know we would be coming. She sounded at first reluctant—protesting that her house was a mess, that she had not had a chance to buy anything for Thomas, due to how many shifts she had been picking up around the holidays—and then resigned.

—Gee, I said. You don’t have to worry about that. Thomas has been asking to see you. That’s all.

She paused.

—He has? she said.

In her voice, I heard the faintest smile.

—Well, she said. All right then.

—How’s the afternoon? I said. Four o’clock or so?

—That’ll be fine, said Gee, and then she hung up without saying goodbye, which, for her, is standard.



* * *



—

This morning, Thomas and I spent some quiet time together. I made him waffles: a favorite of his. I gave him four presents to unwrap: a Transformer figure that comes up to his waist; a ukulele (he has been telling me he wants to learn guitar); a collection of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, the same ones that I loved, too, as a child; and a pair of light-up sneakers with Spiderman on them.

Now he is wearing the last, and from the backseat I hear small thuds that indicate he is tapping his heels together and watching the result. When I glance in the rearview mirror, I see he is looking out the window, his face grayed by the dim light of winter.



* * *



—

I exit at Girard and make my way toward Fishtown. The streets are quiet. On Christmas Day, everyone’s either in the suburbs or bundled up inside their homes.

I turn onto Belgrade, my childhood street, and park easily. I let Thomas out and take his hand as we walk.

I press the bell once, then wait. It gives off the same sound it’s given for thirty years: a ding followed by an electronic wheeze. It’s never been fixed.

When enough time goes by, I take out my own key—several times, over the years, Gee has had the locks changed to prevent Kacey from stealing anything, but she has always made sure I have an up-to-date copy—and put it in the lock.

Just before I turn it, Gee flings the door open, blinking into the sunlight. She’s taken some care with her outfit: her hair, short and dyed brown, is combed neatly, and she’s wearing a red sweater and blue jeans, rather than her usual outfit of a sweatshirt and leggings. She has put earrings in her ears that are meant to look like small spherical Christmas ornaments, red and blue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gee wearing anything but silver studs, the kind you get at nine years old from piercing stations in the mall.

—Sorry, says Gee, moving aside so we can enter. I was on the john.



* * *



—

It’s chilly inside. Gee still keeps the heat turned down to save on her gas bill, apparently. Thomas starts shivering. I can hear his teeth.

But I can see, too, that Gee has put some effort into the place: there is a Christmas tree in the corner, tiny and scraggly (Got it yesterday down the corner, says Gee, the last one on the lot); and there are three little music boxes on the mantel of the fireplace, which has never worked. The music boxes support a dancing bear and a nutcracker doll and a figure of Santa Claus that jackknifes its legs and arms as it turns on a round base. Kacey and I loved them and made them go around and around every day, often all at once, which made a terrible racket that Gee deplored. Thomas, too, is drawn to them, and he approaches them and takes the bear down and looks it over, inspecting its gears. He is tall enough, I notice, to reach the top of the mantel.



* * *



—

—Do you mind? I say, standing near a light switch.

—Go ahead, says Gee. I was gonna do that anyway.

I flick it, and the strand of lights on the Christmas tree turn on.

I nearly ask her if I can turn the heat up a little, too, but instead I opt to simply leave my coat on. I’ll leave Thomas’s on, too.

I hand Gee a loaf of cranberry bread that I picked up from a bakery in Bensalem yesterday, and she takes it wordlessly and brings it into the kitchen. I hear the refrigerator door open and then close. For as long as I can remember, Gee has been waging war on the mice that come and go seasonally in her house, and this means never, ever leaving food out on the counter.

She comes back into the living room, and suddenly I notice how small she has gotten over the years. She was always petite—Kacey and I both outsized her profoundly from the time we were about ten—but now she is childlike, very thin, perhaps too thin. She still moves quickly, always jittery, her hands always searching for something I can’t quite identify, moving to her jaw and then her waist and then into her pockets and then out again. She paces to the tree and extracts from it two packages, hastily wrapped, one for Thomas and one for me.

—Here, she says.

—Should we sit down? I say.

—Whatever you want, says Gee.

Thomas and I take seats on the sofa—unchanged since my childhood, fraying at the seams—and I let him open his present first. The box is large and unwieldy, and I have to hold it for him while he tears at the paper.